Look! Up in the sky! It’s Supermoon!

Parents who are saddened by the fact that they can’t treat their kids to a meteor shower — because the darn things always seem to peak at 2 a.m. … and you have to drive out to find someplace dark … catch a break this weekend.

Saturday night, the skies feature a “supermoon”: an evening where the full moon is at its brightest and largest, about 16 percent brighter than normal.

That’s because the time the moon officially becomes full (about 9:35 p.m. Mountain Time) lines up with the moon’s perigee (the moment when it is closest to Earth). The moon be about 221,802 miles away, which is the closest it will be all year.

The trick, I am told, is to look at the moon while it is partially blocked … through the branches of a tree for example. This makes it look even bigger and more impressive and can make for a better photo.

The last “supermoon” was in March 2011. The smallest full moon of the year (farthest away) will be Nov. 28.

The larger size of the moon when it’s rising, still near the horizon, is an optical illusion, of course, that is still not well-understood:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion
I think that a camera might not be able to capture the illusion, anyone know?

Also, its color low in the sky is owing to stuff in the air–pollution, dust, volcano output when that happens, etc.

Nevertheless, I’ll be out there, since this is a stand-in-your-driveway event, not a drive-away-from-light-pollution event. I expect it to be fine.

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